The rapper was estranged from his father for his entire life, but rapped about him in several songs.
Eminem's father, Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr., has died.
Bruce, as he went by, died earlier this week at his home near Fort Wayne, Indiana, according to multiple reports. ET has reached out to Eminem's rep for comment. According to TMZ, who was first to report the news, Bruce suffered a heart attack while at home. He was 67.
Eminem had been estranged from his father for his entire life. The 46-year-old rapper's mother, Debbie Nelson Mathers, married Bruce in 1970, and Eminem, real name Marshall Bruce Mathers III, was born two years later. Debbie and Bruce split soon after Eminem's birth, and Bruce left the family in Detroit to move to California, where he later had two more children.
In a 1999 interview with Rolling Stone, Debbie said that her son wrote and mailed a few letters to Bruce as a teenager, but they came back marked "return to sender." Eminem, meanwhile, told the magazine that he heard his dad had been "trying to get in touch" with him once he became famous. However, it doesn't appear that they ever reconciled.
Eminem's grudge against his father has made its way into his music over the years. The rapper's hit songs like "My Name Is" and "Cleanin' Out My Closet" reflect his feelings of being abandoned.
"My fa***t father must've had his panties up in a bunch 'Cause he split, I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye. No, I don't, on second thought, I just f**kin' wished he would die. I look at Hailie, and I couldn't picture leavin' her side," Eminem wraps in 2002's "Cleanin' Out My Closet."
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